1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a contact terminal fixing construction in which a contact terminal can be mounted on a board without applying a load to the contact terminal.
2. Description of the Related Art
As shown in FIG. 6, a door 60 of an automobile comprises a door frame 61 for being opened and closed relative to a vehicle body (not shown), and a trim 62 to be mounted on that side (front side in the drawing) of the door frame 61 facing a passenger room.
A door-frame-side harness 63 is mounted on the door frame 61, and a casing 65 of a courtesy lamp 64 and a trim-side harness 67, connected to a switch panel 66, are mounted on the trim 62. The door-frame-side harness 63, the casing 65 and the trim-side harness 67 have strip-like contact terminals 68 of a predetermined length. The contact terminal 68 is formed, for example, by folding back a strip-like, flat metal member at a predetermined portion thereof, and the folded-back portion is formed into a substantially arcuate shape to serve as a spring portion.
In this door 60, when the trim 62 is mounted on the door frame 61, each of the contact terminals 68 is pressed against the associated contact terminal 68, and as a result the electrical connection to the courtesy lamp 64 and the switch panel 66 is made.
On the other hand, there has been proposed a connector housing (conventional construction; see Japanese Utility Model Examined Publication No. Hei. 2-47568) in which a terminal is inserted obliquely into a terminal receiving chamber, and then is pressed down, thereby retaining the terminal in a double manner.
In this conventional construction, by effecting the simple operation, that is, merely by inserting the terminal obliquely into the terminal receiving chamber and then by pressing down the terminal, the terminal can be retained in a double manner, and therefore there is obtained an advantage that the efficiency of the operation is greatly enhanced.
Incidentally, as shown in FIGS. 7(A) to 7(C), when the above connector housing 70 is used as a construction of fixing the contact terminal 68, the connector housing 70 is fixedly secured to a board, for example, in the casing 65 of the courtesy lamp 64, and the contact terminal 68 is inserted into the connector housing 70. In this case, however, during the insertion of the contact terminal 68 into the connector housing 70, the spring portion 69 of the contact terminal 68 is flexed by a wall 71 of the connector housing 70, which leads to a possibility that the contact terminal 68 is deteriorated or damaged.